Hiring ban rescues workers from exploitation

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The current hiring ban imposed on Indonesian workers by the Taiwan Council of Labor Affairs may be a blow to the cash- strapped Indonesia, but it could save tens of thousands of the country's migrant workers from further exploitation.

Workers leaving for Taiwan are usually promised average monthly salaries of NT$15,000 (US$450 or about Rp 4.3 million), but they rarely receive the full amount.

Sarinah, an Indonesian who has worked as a maid in Taiwan for two and half years, wrote in a letter made available to The Jakarta Post on Saturday that she has never received her complete salary of NT$15,840.

She said that numerous deductions were taken from her salary, including for medical insurance, residential fees, taxes, security insurance, the service fee for her local agent and the fee for her Indonesian labor broker.

"I was supposed to only have to pay the brokers for my first 14 months here, but it was extended to 21 months," Sarinah wrote.

Paul Minggo, chairman of the Taindo Autonomy Council, an organization of Indonesian labor agents for Taiwan, said on Saturday the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration had established a new regulation allowing Taiwan labor agents (PJTKAs) to collect NT$1,800 from each migrant worker. It also allows Indonesian labor brokers (PJTKIs) to charge NT$1,500 in agency fees for each migrant sent to Taiwan.

The ministry also allows monthly salary deductions of NT$3,965 for 21 months, while PJTKAs generally seek to deduct NT$10,000 each month for 15 months.

On top of that, the Indonesian government requires the migrant workers to send home a minimum of NT$3,000 every month, and if the workers do not remit this money their Taiwan labor agents can lose their right to recruit workers here.

This regulation has prompted authorities in Taiwan to freeze the hiring of Indonesian workers until Jakarta changes this regulation.

The Taipei Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta said in a news release that the mandatory NT$3,000 monthly remittance violated Taiwan's labor law.

"This is against the law in Taiwan and violates the rights of migrant workers and their local agents. This also makes the migrant workers break their contracts and run away from their jobs, and it troubles many local employers," Kuo-Fang Ie, director general of the council's Employment and Vocational Training Department, said in the statement.

Data compiled from the Council of Labor Affairs, Executive Yuan and the National Police Administration of Taiwan shows that 3,277 Indonesian workers broke their contracts and left their jobs from March last year to March this year.

Soeramsihono, the director general of migrant workers at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, was unavailable for comment as he was in the hospital with heart problems.

Kuo-Fang Ie did not say when the hiring freeze might be lifted.

"No date will be set for the lifting of the ban and no applications from Indonesian laborers will be approved (until the ban is lifted)," Kuo said.

This freeze has left at least 7,000 prospective migrant workers, some 85 percent of them women, stranded in temporary shelters in Jakarta awaiting their departure to Taiwan.

"Most of them have been waiting between two and six months and they have no idea about when they will fly to Taipei, because usually the more they pay the faster they can go," Paryono of the National Network of Indonesian Migrant Workers said.

Christine, a labor broker, said prospective migrant workers looking for work as maids were required to pay their agents some Rp 1 million, while factory workers paid Rp 28 million.

"This is ironic. On the one hand we need the migrant workers to bring foreign exchange into the country, but on the other hand our (migrant) workers have just become cash machines for the 'labor mafia' here," Carla, chairwoman of the Center for Indonesian Migrant Workers, told the Post on Saturday.

Currently, some 96,971 Indonesians working in Taiwan as maids, construction workers, factory workers and caretakers for the elderly, send about Rp 600 billion back to Indonesian monthly.